Only in America: Suing the mall whose fountain you fell into... while texting

The WeekStaff

Cathy Cruz Marrero admits her fall into the fountain was funny, but says no one took her feelings into consideration. YouTube

January 21, 2011

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The story: It's been a hard two weeks for Cathy Cruz Marrero, a Pennsylvania resident who became an unwitting YouTube sensation when security-camera footage of her falling into a mall fountain while texting appeared on the web. (Watch the video.) "I was like, 'I'm hoping nobody saw me,'" Marrero said during a "Good Morning America" appearance with her lawyer. She's threatened to sue the mall, charging that mall security failed to help her and instead allowed the video to make its way to YouTube.The reaction: If Marrero's goal was to "squash a viral video," says Melissa Bell in The Washington Post, appearing on national TV with a lawyer and issuing silly legal threats was a dubious strategy. In fact, says Patrick Berkery in phillyBurbs.com, "this whole brouhaha... is starting to resemble the story of Golden Voiced Homeless Guy Ted Williams." It's cute until you learn that Marrero allegedly stole more than $5,000 from a co-worker. These "new twists certainly aren't endearing Marrero any further to her Internet fans," says Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon. But "the greater portion of contempt" should go to the mall cops, and the rest of us, who "took such astonishing relish in her fall." We laugh now, but "to everyone who owns a phone, I say, ask not for whom the shopping mall fountain waits, it waits for thee." Watch CNN's take on the story: